On the 25th anniversary of the Philippine Senate rejection of the extension of the US-Philippine Military Bases Agreement, nationalist groups marched to the US Embassy in Manila Friday to protest what they say is the increasing American intervention in the Duterte regime.
The rally ended with the first-ever burning of a Duterte effigy by activists.
To be able to freely oppose the “fascist Rodrigo Duterte regime,” the Makabayan bloc announced Thursday it is bolting from the majority coalition in the House of Representatives.
The group’s sitting representatives and other leaders said in a press conference said they will henceforth be an independent bloc in Congress.
“Today, we, seven party list representatives of the Makabayan Bloc, declare our separation from the Majority Coalition in the House of Representatives to intensify our opposition to the Duterte administration that has now fully unravelled as a fascist, pro-imperialist and anti-people regime,” Makabayan said.
Makabayan is composed of Bayan Muna, ACT Teachers, Anakpawis, Kabataan, and Gabriela Women’s parties.
The group said it joined the Majority last year after being encouraged by Duterte’s reformist and populist actions and pronouncements on a range of issues.
Makabayan cited Duterte’s promise to resume the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), release of political prisoners, ending of neo-colonial ties with the United States of America government, pursuing an independent foreign policy, addressing the roots of the Moro rebellion, ending labor contractualization, increasing government support to farmers, putting a stop to destructive mining practices, reducing income taxes of rank and file employees, and increasing social pensions, and prioritizing basic social services over infrastructure as among the reasons for entering the coalition.
“From the very start, we consistently opposed the Administration’s anti-people bills and policies to the point that we were stripped of our committee chairmanships due to our stand against the death penalty bill. Despite one disappointment after another, we persisted in the Majority in the hope that some socioeconomic and political reforms could be achieved, if not through Congress, then through the Government of Republic of the Philippines-NDFP peace talks,” the group explained.
Duterte has failed on his promises, Makabayan said.
“Worst of all, his ‘war on drugs’ has turned into a campaign of mass murder of the poor, for which he shows no signs of turning back,” the group said.
Earlier, Malacañan said it hoped Makabayan would keep it ties with the Duterte government.
“We hope the Makabayan bloc will stay with the administration and the House majority,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said at a palace briefing last September 8.
Abella said the palace hoped the progressive solons would continue to work with the administration on certain issues, even if they decide dissociate themselves from the Duterte.
“However, if they do decide to go, we wish them well and we hope that they will remain open to working together with others on issues of shared interest,” Abella said.
Makabayan in its announcement today however said the die is cast.
“We shall fight the fascist US-Duterte regime and hold it accountable for its gross violations of human rights and the further oppression and impoverishment of our people,” the group said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
BANGKOK, Thailand–A 74-year old political detainee arrested under President Rodrigo Duterte died in a Philippine hospital Tuesday.
Marcos Aggalao, a veteran of the struggle against Ferdinand Marcos’ Chico Dam project, died while on hospital arrest at the Kalinga Provincial Hospital in Tabuk September 12 from complications arising from multiple strokes he suffered in detention.
The victim suffered his third stroke in prison last August 29. He also suffered dementia.
Aggalao is the second political prisoner who had died in detention under the Duterte regime. Both were elderly and sickly.
On November 2016, Bernabe Ocasla, 66, a peasant organizer detained in Metro Manila City Jail also died after being in a coma for three days and subsequently suffered a heart attack.
Aggalao was arrested September 10, 2016 by the Kalinga Philippine National Police on charges of frustrated murder and murder, among others.
Aggalao hailed from Balbalan, Kalinga province, one of the many communities in the Cordilleras that fought the Marcos dictatorship.
“Sandugo holds the Duterte regime accountable for the death of 74-year old political prisoner because he failed to fullfill his commitment to release all political prisoners, especially the elderly and the ailing,” national minorities group Sandugo in a statement said.
“To him [Duterte], political prisoners are simply trump cards he can use to force the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) into a bilateral and permanent ceasefire agreement ahead of the agreement on social and economic reforms that includes guarantees on the rights of the national minorities to their ancestral lands and territories,” Sandugo added.
The group said Aggalao is another addition to a long list of those who have given their lives and prime years “to fight tyranny.”
“But Duterte, in complete disregard [of history], acts to reverse this…He has consistently moved towards the political rehabilitation of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was responsible for the multiple crimes of genocide against the Bangsamoro and the widespread dispossession of the national minorities of their ancestral lands,” Sandugo said.
Human rights group Karapatan for its part said Aggalao’s death is “enraging.”
Karapatan said Duterte’s “cheap tricks” to turn political prisoners into trump cards and deny them freedom have cost them their lives.
“It is not only their illness that have caused their deaths, but this government’s injustice and inaction. For every political prisoner who dies, ultimately, the GRP is accountable,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay in a statement said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
Progressive groups commemorated Ferdinand Marcos’ 100th birth anniversary Monday by holding a protest rally at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetary) in Taguig City, saying President Rodrigo Duterte is as much as tyrant as the late dictator.
(Photos by Kathy Yamzon and Roberto de Castro)
BANGKOK, Thailand–The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) dismissed President Rodrigo Duterte’s demand for the New People’s Army (NPA) to declare another ceasefire and for guerrillas to surrender and work for his government as paramilitaries.
In a statement Saturday, the CPP Information Bureau said Duterte’ demand for an NPA ceasefire as a precondition for the resumption of formal peace negotiations is unacceptable, adding the Armed Forces of the Philippines is conducting all-out war against their forces and civilians throughout the country.
“This is unacceptable. Does Duterte really take the revolutionary forces as fools?” the CPP asked.
In his speech on the 17th anniversary of Digos’ cityhood Friday, Duterte said there will be no talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) until the Reds declare a ceasefire.
“If you want to resume the peace talks, you declare ceasefire or nothing. And if you say you want another war, be my guest,” Duterte said.
Duterte cancelled the fifth round of formal peace negotiations between his government and the NDFP last May after the NDFP spurned his demand for another ceasefire “as a goodwill measure and create a favourable climate” for the negotiations.
The NDFP, however, said a ceasefire is unacceptable while Duterte is implementing a “triple war” through his so-called war on drugs called Operation Plan (Oplan) Double Barrel/Tokhang, counter-insurgency program called Oplan Kapayapaan, and martial law declaration in Mindanao.
“Duterte has lost all moral grounds to make such a demand. Recall that the NPA declared a ceasefire on August 19, 2016 which lasted for close to 160 days as a response to Duterte’s signed commitment to release around 500 political prisoners through an amnesty proclamation,” the CPP said.
“Duterte, however, wasted the goodwill of the NDFP when it failed to fulfil its commitment and took advantage of the NPA ceasefire to deploy his soldiers and conduct military offensives,” the group added.
No NPA capitulation
The CPP said NDFP-GRP negotiations will no longer be fruitful while Duterte demands NPA capitulation and surrender.
“Surrender. I will make you soldiers of this republic. Just CAFGU (Citizens Armed Force Geographical Unit) for the moment,” Duterte in his speech said.
Duterte added there would be no preconditions for the surrender and promised to give them firearms and houses once they turn themselves in to a mayor or the military.
NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison scoffed at Duterte’s latest statement and said his former student has gone truly insane.
“He wants to convert surrendered NPAs into his soldiers? Duterte has truly gone insane,” Sison said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Sison said that, early on, Duterte has been proven to be a liar and untrustworthy.
“The line has been drawn to separate, fight and overthrow the US-Duterte regime. Duterte would have a hard time to act convincing again,” Sison said.
More NPA offensives
The CPP said it is the people who clamor for the NPA to mount more and more tactical offensives.
“Victories of the people’s army inspire resistance amid widespread killings and the climate of fear imposed by the Duterte regime,” the CPP in its statement said.
“The NPA launches tactical offensive to bring to account the Duterte regime and its soldiers and police for thousands upon thousands of Oplan Tokhang killings, the successive killings of peasants, national minorities and youths, military occupation of civilian communities, aerial bombings and shelling, the near-genocidal war against the Maranaos of Marawi, arbitrary arrests and detention, and so on,” it added.
The CPP also dismissed Duterte’s threat to 50 more years of civil war.
“By the looks of it, Duterte may not even last his term. He has roused the anger of the Filipino people and caused his increasing isolation. The revolutionary movement will surely outlast the US-Duterte regime,” the CPP said.
“The Filipino people and their revolutionary forces have waged close to 50 years of people’s war. They do not tire. They are determined as ever to wage revolution because they seek to end the unbearable sufferings of workers and peasants under the oppressive and exploitative system,” it added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) called for the isolation of the Rodrigo Duterte administration after the successive killings of minors believed connected with the government’s war against drugs as well as its martial law in Mindanao and counter-insurgency program.
In an editorial of the party’s official organ Ang Bayan, the CPP’s said the Filipino people’s outrage is rapidly accumulating against Duterte’s “repressive tyrannical rule.”
“They indict Duterte for the successive killings of several youths these past days by his armed minions: Kian delos Santos, 17 years old, Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 19 and Reynaldo de Guzman, 14, who all were tortured and killed by stabbing and shooting by the police in the “war against drugs”; and Obillio Bay-ao, 19, Lumad youth in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, who was shot and killed by paramilitary forces,” the article said.
The CPP said the people blame Duterte for the killing of many thousands by the three wars he has launched: the Oplan Tokhang “war against drugs”, the Oplan Kapayapaan war of suppression and martial law in Mindanao, and the anti-Moro war and destruction of Marawi.
“The people detest Duterte for repeatedly ensuring protection and giving incentives to police and soldiers for blindly following his kill orders,” the CPP said.
The revolutionary group said almost 20 were killed under Oplan Kapayapaan and Oplan Tokhang in the last two weeks alone.
The CPP also scored the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ failure to end the war in Marawi after more than 100 days of siege.
“The people are fed up with Duterte’s repetitious, scornful and self-conceited speeches. His pretensions, spectacles and false images are rapidly losing efficacy in the face of actual measures, policies and programs which harm the interests of the people and oppress the downtrodden,” the CPP said.
The party called on its forces to “act vigorously to expand and consolidate the ranks of mass organizations and build the people’s broadest unity in order to isolate and resist the US-Duterte regime.”
The group urged the formation of broad alliances, that could include “Duterte’s political rivals.”
“Various forces can also unite against Duterte’s measures to suppress his political rivals (through detention, impeachment and murder) and to monopolize political power through charter change under its supposed pursuit of ‘federalism,’” the CPP said.
The CPP said the people are slowly overcoming and repudiating the climate of awe and fear imposed by Duterte.
‘Sparrow’ teams and commando units
CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison for his part said there is a public clamor to form self-defense units in communities in addition to New People’s Army and People’s Militia forces to defend the people against Duterte’s “triple war.”
“The CPP’s Central Committee may study and decide on this clamor as it sees fit,” Sison in an online interview told Kodao.
Sison said it is justified that the Filipino people fight the Duterte regime using all forms of struggle in light of the killings of civilians, including minors.
“If ever-increasing and ever-widening rallies won’t be enough to isolate and oust the Duterte regime, the people’s war should move resolutely forward so that it won’t just be Duterte but the corrupt ruling system that would be brought down,” Sison said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) condemned the rejection of Rafael Mariano as Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) secretary and blamed President Rodrigo Duterte for the Commission on Appointments (CA) decision Wednesday.
“The marching order to reject Ka Paeng came directly from Malacañang and President Duterte,” KMP in a statement said after the CA decision.
KMP blamed Duterte’s “fealty to landlords and oligarchs” for the CA’s decision, adding the chief executive “chose to throw away whatever reforms Mariano has started in DAR.”
The group said Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio was among those who opposed Mariano’s confirmation because her husband Atty. Maneses Carpio is a legal counsel of Lapanday Foods Corporation (LFC).
“The Lorenzo family (owners of LFC) and Lapanday strongly contested Mariano’s installation of 153 farmer-beneficiaries of the Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Inc. (MARBAI) to the lands grabbed by Lapanday in Tagum City,” KMP said.
The Lorenzos also acquired the controversial Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac from the Cojuangco family.
The farmers group also said “militarists” in the Duterte cabinet led by Department of National Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Eduardo Año also lobbied for Mariano’s rejection.
“Lorenzana and Año connived with Mayor Duterte-Carpio in leading the governors of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental and Davao Occidental, through the Davao region’s Regional Development Council (RDC XI) and Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC XI) in blocking the confirmation of Mariano,” KMP said.
The Davao RDC, the opposition of Lapanday and Hacienda Luisita are among the reasons of the Commission on Appointments (CA) rejection of Mariano, KMP added.
KMP said the oppositors submitted a resolution dated May 11 this year to CA chairperson Sen. Aquilino Pimentel informing him of Mariano’s alleged “involvement” in the attacks by the New People’s Army on Lapanday.
The group said the document was based on fabricated “intelligence reports (that) smacked of a witch hunt that has been a feature of the Duterte government’s dirty and bloody counter-insurgency program.”
“Landlords like the Lorenzos and the Cojuangco-Aquinos have wrestled their way to get back control of DAR to favor and protect their interests,” KMP said.
“Mariano’s rejection is another proof that pro-US and militarist hawks are intent on ensuring that genuine socio-economic reforms – including free land distribution and other pro-farmer reforms at DAR advocated by Mariano – won’t prosper,” KMP secretary general Antonio Flores said.
“It is consistent with the Duterte government’s refusal to address the socio-economic demands of farmers, and is part of the AFP’s arsenal perpetuating the people’s suffering,” Flores said.
CA committee on agrarian reform chairperson Senator Vicente Sotto III made the announcement on Mariano’s rejection, saying at least 13 members voted against the secretary.
“After an exhaustive deliberation and impartial scrutiny of the testimonies, endorsements, oppositions, and documents submitted, your committee called for a vote. In accordance with the results, in accordance with the rules, I should say, the weight of the scales ultimately tipped the balance against the confirmation of the appointee,” Sotto said.
As in the case of Mariano’s fellow National Democratic Front of the Philippines nominee to the Duterte Cabinet Judy Taguiwalo, the CA also did not announce the names of the 13 members who voted against the nomination.
Genuine peasant leader
KMP said CA’s rejection of DAR’s first genuine peasant secretary is an injustice to Filipino farmers.
“The decision of the CA to reject Mariano does not represent the demand and clamor of millions of farmers for a pro-farmer DAR,” KMP said.
“Behind Ka Paeng Mariano are two million members of KMP and their families, tens of thousands of agrarian reform beneficiaries and millions of rural poor and Filipinos aspiring for genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty and peace,” the group said.
“Ka Paeng Mariano has staunchly stood by his position against the conversion of agricultural lands, the very policy that the elite-dominated Congress of landlords and capitalists wants to pursue and perpetuate,” it added.
KMP said Mariano is pursuing free land distribution, social services for farmers, food security for all Filipinos and significant reforms at DAR.
“There’s so much more to accomplish at DAR but militarists and pro-neoliberal elements in the Duterte regime and President Duterte himself are preventing genuine public servants like Rafael Mariano and Judy Taguiwalo to do their tasks,” KMP said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
National minority groups camped out at the University of the Philippines in Diliman blamed President Rodrigo Duterte for the death of a Lumad teenager in Davao del Norte Tuesday.
In a press conference on their sixth day in Metro Manila, Sandugo (Movement of Moros and Indigenous Peoples for Self Determination) said the killing of LUmad youth Obillo Bay-ao, 19, by a paramilitary trooper is on Duterte’s hand.
“We mark Obillo Bay-ao’s death with rage. It is another testimony to the mounting crimes of the US-Duterte regime against the national minorities,” Datu Jerome Succor Aba, Suara Bangsamoro chairperson and Sandugo co-chairperson said.
Bay-ao died Tuesday evening at the Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum City eight hours after being shot dead by a certain Ben Salangani of the Armed Forces of the Philippines auxiliary group Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit.
The victim was a grade six pupil of Salugpongan Ta ‘Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center in Sitio Dulyan, Brgy. Palma Gil, Talaingod, Davao Del Norte.
Sandugo said it holds the Duterte regime accountable for the escalation of attacks against the national minorities as part of its all-out war and counterinsurgency policies and martial law declaration.
“The national minorities—the Moro and indigenous peoples—are the hardest hit by Duterte’s martial law and all-out war,” it said during the press conference.
Sandugo said there are at least 29 documented victims of extrajudicial killings among the national minorities from June 2016 to June 2017, excluding those killed in the Marawi siege.
“Our people are being killed, harassed, and almost wiped out by state attacks,” Sandugo said.
The Sandugo second assembly at the camp out Tuesday indicted the Duterte for “the intensifying fascist attacks against the national minorities and the worsening land-grabbing and plunder of resources in ancestral lands and territories, which may now lead to ethnocide.”
“The President—who earlier recognized and promised to correct the hundreds of years of injustice against the national minorities—now embodies national oppression, which has caused the injustices to and oppression of the national minorities,” the assembly declaration said.
Some 2,500 national minorities from the Cordilleras, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Mindoro, Quezon, Rizal, Palawan, Panay and the island of Mindanao are in Metro Manila for the assembly and Lakbayan. # (Raymund B. Villanueva/Featured image by Alcadev)
Various groups and personalities launched the Movement Against Tyranny in Quezon City today “to unite all freedom-loving Filippines against tyranny and build a broad front to counter the increasing fascism and militarist rule of the (Rodrigo) Duterte government.”
The group approved the manifesto “Stop the Killings, Stand Against Tyranny” that accuses Duterte of unleashing police and police-backed death squads blamed for the the “brutal and murderous war on drugs” that has victimized thousands of mostly poor, small-time drug users and pushers.
Warning the Duterte government is fast unfolding into another despotic regime, the group calls on the public “to take a stand, speak out and act” against the extrajudicial killings and other “blatant acts of tyranny.”
MAT is the broadest alliance of groups yet that opposes Duterte’s war on drug, which include religious and political leaders, human rights organizations, activists, academics, lawyers, journalists and many others.
The cold-blooded murder of 17-year-old senior high school student, Kian Loyd delos Santos, by Caloocan police, in what President Rodrigo Roa Duterte loudly proclaims as his administration’s unrelenting “war on drugs,” has unleashed a firestorm of protest.
No, Justice Secretary Aguirre, people are not buying your line that Kian’s killing is an “isolated case” that has been “overblown” by the mass media. Coming on the heels of a spate of killings (74 in just 3 days) in “one time, big time” police operations in the slum areas of Bulacan and Manila, Kian’s death is only unique in that CCTV footage and eyewitnesses point unerringly to his merciless beating and execution by policemen in plainclothes.
Neither are they buying the incredible story dished out by the police, without an iota of evidence except their say so, that Kian was a drug courier for his father and uncle. After the fact of his killing in the hands of the police, an alleged drug pusher who claims to have had dealings with Kian is trotted out together with allegations of nonspecific incriminating evidence police investigators discovered, again incredibly, in social media.
Authorities cannot even claim Kian to be the unfortunate but inevitable “collateral damage” of their determined efforts to stamp out the illicit drug trade. Unlike scores of other minors mowed down in Oplan Tokhang and its reinvigorated version, Oplan Double Barrel, who supposedly died in the cross fire, Kian was fatally shot twice in the head, at close range, while prostrate or kneeling, according to official forensic findings.
Yes, oh yes, President Duterte, this one is on you. You egged your police (actually, even your military, but they are too busy with counter-terrorism cum counter-insurgency operations) to “kill, kill, kill” as your administration kept missing your self-imposed deadline for eradicating the drug problem in three months, then six months, and now you admit, maybe not even till the end of your six-year term of office. (Was it just another foot-in-mouth gaffe or were you dead serious when you lauded the Bulacan police for killing 32 drug suspects in 24 hours and called for such a “fine” example to be emulated by the rest of your police forces.)
The more the police killed those who they claim to be in some “drug watch list,” Duterte could unabashedly claim progress, if not success, in his brutal “war on drugs.”
But in light of international criticism of the mounting body count, the police have whittled the official number of police kills down to around 2500, with a similar number being “deaths under investigation” (police speak for killings attributed to vigilantes and/or drug gang rivalry). Nonetheless, mass media and other independent tallies have the running total anywhere between 7000 to more than 10,000.
A system of quotas and rewards for eliminating small-time drug addicts and pushers apparently is in place thus the propensity for periodic raids on urban poor communities to flush them out or to out rightly kill suspects without affording them any kind of due process.
Duterte provided the perfect alibi: the police have the right to employ lethal force in self-defense should a suspect resist arrest or is armed and dangerous. The police picked up the cue from their Commander-in-Chief and so invariably, suspects are reportedly killed in a gun battle with the police, the former initiating the encounter by firing a gun. The police in turn are such sharpshooters no matter the lighting or spatial conditions that suspects always get fatally shot. Or if they are brought into custody alive, they invariably try to grab a police escort’s gun and end up getting killed.
Duterte then promised that with this role play of the police “merely doing their job,” he would protect them from legal prosecution and if convicted, he would pardon them. Such presidential cloak of impunity was proven in the case of Superintendent Marvin Marcos, head of the raiding team that killed alleged drug lord Mayor Rolando Espinosa while in jail. Marcos was reinstated upon Duterte’s direct order to PNP Chief Dela Rosa.
This impunity apparently is also operative in the case of the slaughter by police of the notorious Mayor Parojinog and 14 others, in a shadowy operation to serve a search warrant on a “narcopolitician.” There has been no serious investigation on this case and Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido who led the assault team will likely get a promotion in short order. (He already enjoyed being lionized in the media as someone who got some big fish in the anti-drug war.)
Duterte has been encouraged by the seeming general public approval, if not praise, for his actions. He hit on a nerve — society’s fear of heinous crimes being committed by shabu-crazed addicts or even just neighborhood addicts cum toughies lording it over their unpoliced communities. He had promised to end it swiftly, if brutally.
But only the bad guys were supposed to bear the full brunt of the Duterte regime’s “war on drugs” and maybe an acceptable number of “collateral damage.” And even if disturbing evidence of the extrajudicial killings were splashed on television screens, the front page of newspapers and the internet, the public was lulled into thinking that the victims were society’s dregs and were thus dispensable.
Until the killing of Kian Loyd delos Santos.
A teenager who had dreams of being a policeman someday. The eldest child of an OFW mother slaving away in Saudi Arabia to support her children and a father tending a small sari-sari store to make ends meet. A grade 11 student who begged the plainclothes policemen who were beating him up to please stop as he had an examination the following day. An ordinary fellow with no record and no reputation in the neighborhood of being involved with illegal drugs in any way. A right-handed person who supposedly shot at the police with his left hand. Whose ordeal was caught on CCTV and seen by several witnesses.
Thus he became Everyman — any poor but struggling parents’ son — minding his own business yet finding himself in the crosshairs of the Duterte regime’s “war on drugs.” This is exemplified in the social media post #IAmKian.
All of a sudden there is widespread outrage and dismay. Kian’s murder has unlocked the Pandora’s box of official deception about the effectiveness of the “war on drugs” and of the official cover-up of the horrible crimes being committed in its name.
The public outcry is simple and straightforward: Stop the killings! Justice for Kian, justice for all! To achieve these demands there is the urgent need to expose the mastermind and make him ultimately accountable. #
(Carol Pagaduan-Araullo is a medical doctor by training, social activist by choice, columnist by accident, happy partner to a liberated spouse and proud mother of two. This article was first published as an opinion piece by BusinessWorld: http://bworldonline.com/justice-kian-justice/)
[Photo by Danny de Guzman / Kodao Productions]